Paralegal

Paralegal (Inside IR35)

Contract Term: 12 Months – Possibility of extension

Contracting Authority: Government Legal Department (GLD)

Location: Hybrid - London / Leeds / Manchester / Bristol – 3 days per week in office & the rest WFH

A GLD paralegal is someone with legal knowledge, experience and/or qualifications who undertakes legal tasks that would otherwise be carried out by a lawyer.

The role involves working to deliver GLD’s service to clients under an appropriate level of supervision including in preparing legal documents, undertaking legal research, supporting project management and promoting knowledge management. When the business need arises, the post-holder will be expected to support Business Management colleagues with their work.

The specific work tasks of the role are likely to vary depending on the Division and Team to which the post-holder is allocated, with differing levels of accountability for owning caseloads/pieces of advice/matter/bill work. The post-holder should have the interpersonal skills to work as part of a team and to interact with departmental/cross divisional colleagues, and other stakeholders. They will be able to prioritise work effectively, work to deadlines and showcase behaviours that align to GLD’s culture and values. The post-holder will typically report to a lawyer but will often support a wider team, subject to workloads and available resources.

As a Paralegal, your main responsibilities will be:

· Acting at all times in accordance with GLD’s standards and policies and maintaining a professional, responsible, responsive and courteous service to maintain GLD’s excellent reputation with stakeholders and clients.

· Providing legal support to lawyers to help them build and maintain good relationships with clients.

· Playing an active role in legal awareness for clients.

· Carrying out legal research, presenting results and using it to inform notes or first drafts of advice.

· Assisting with the management of large-scale projects such as secondary legislation, implementing new agreements, procurements, litigation and other dispute resolution and coordinating these elements across Government departments.

· Planning and implementing legal projects for the team, including providing process updates.

· Making effective use of information and case management/filing systems (whether electronic or hard copy), including storing and retrieving information.

· Contributing to the Division’s Knowledge Management material Collating and disseminating legal know-how and updates from a range of sources.

· Assisting with management of Knowledge Management (KM) for the Division, including ensuring that the Division’s knowledge is well maintained and easily accessible, supporting the Division’s contribution to GLD’s KM activities.

· Taking responsibility for own case load (under supervision) and/or supporting lawyers by undertaking legal tasks on their cases (including, in particular, the tasks mentioned below).

· Case management including through the use of CMS. Ensuring court and other deadlines are met, including diarising key dates on a case Managing and responding to case correspondence.

· Reviewing documents provided by the client for disclosure, redacting and advising the client as appropriate, dealing with opponents on disclosure. Taking client instructions. Preparing the content of indexed bundles for Counsel or the court/tribunal.

· Instructing counsel to advise, attending conferences with Counsel, and dealing with follow-up work.

· Attending hearings at court or tribunals to support Counsel and clients and dealing with follow-up work.

You’ll have:

· Some knowledge of the legal issues and context in which GLD operates and a demonstrable interest in working on legal matters.

· Some form of legal education and/or experience/training of working in a legal, regulatory or similar environment.

· Highly motivated and able to work independently.

· Ability to deliver successfully in a pressurised environment.

· Ability to work as part of an effective team on ad-hoc tasks and projects.

· Highly organised with good time management skills and the ability to juggle multiple demands and prioritise workloads.

· Ability to critically analyse a range of evidence and options and make an appropriate recommendation.

· Proficiency with Adobe, Excel, Word, Outlook and where appropriate Google Docs.

Desirable criteria:

· Proficiency with legal databases such as Lexis Nexis and Westlaw.

If this role sounds like something that you would be interested in, please click the link to apply or get in touch with Ciara.Lynn@publicsectorresourcing.co.uk

Disability confident

As a member of the disability confident scheme,GLD guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group.

Armed Forces Commitment

GLD guarantees to interview veterans or spouses / partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates / military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group.

If you qualify for the above, please notify us on PSRapplications@publicsectorresourcing.co.uk.

We will be in touch to discuss your suitability and arrange your Guaranteed Interview.

Should you require reasonable adjustments at any point during the recruitment process or if there is a more accessible way for us to communicate, please do let me know.

In applying for this role you acknowledge the following, this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Job Type: Temporary contract
Contract length: 11 months

Pay: £20.48 per hour

Benefits:

• Work from home

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Work Location: Hybrid remote in London

Application deadline: 08/04/2024